A review on herbs against snake venom

Abstract

Herbal medicines are an important component for alternative medicine. Now a day's herbal medicine is becoming ever more popular in world. Herbal medicines are widely used for treatment of human diseases in various systems of medicines like Ayurvedic, Homeopathic, Sidha, Unani and other regional systems of medicines. Herbal drug products vary from country to country, including functional foods, dietary supplements and traditional medicines. A detailed literature survey for regulations of herbal drug products in Europe and India was performed to identify recently introduced changes in regulations as well as newly introduced regulations compliance with the regulatory bodies. Various committees for Herbal Medicinal Products (HMPC), Committee of European Medicines Agency (EMA) is developing guidelines for quality, nonclinical studies, clinical efficacy and safety. Drugs and Cosmetics Rules have been amended recently to control the quality, safety and efficacy of herbal drug products in India. Introduction An herbal medicine is also known as Phytomedicines. It involves the use of plant parts (leaves, roots, stem, flowers, and seeds) for medicinal / therapeutic purpose. It is the oldest and still the most generally used system of medicine in the world at present. The earliest recorded evidence of use of these medicines in Indian, Chinese, Egyptian, Roman and Syrian texts dates back to about 5000 years. 80% of the world population relies on herbal medicines as their primary healthcare system [1]. As per World Health Organization (WHO) herbal medicines are of three types: Raw plant materials, processed plant materials and Medicinal herbal products. In India, herbal medicines are regulated by the Ministry of Ayurveda, Yoga and Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha and Homoeopathy (AYUSH). According to definitions of herbal medicinal product, herbal drug substances and herbal preparations are as follows:  Herbal medicinal product: It is defined as any medicinal product, exclusively containing as active ingredients one or more herbal substances or one or more herbal preparations, or one or more such herbal substances in combination with one or more such herbal preparations.  Herbal substances: These are mainly whole, fragmented or cut plants, plant parts, algae, fungi, lichen in an unprocessed, usually dried, form, but sometimes fresh.  Herbal preparations: These are the preparations obtained by subjecting herbal substances to treatments such as extraction, distillation, expression, fractionation, purification, concentration or fermentation. These include comminuted or powdered herbal substances, tinctures, extracts, essential oils, expressed juices and processed exudates.